We swell the rolls here at Shared Darkness as time and inclination permits, and since I seem to randomly see Ron Jeremy every couple of months (most recently loitering outside of legendary hot dog eatery Pink's, on La Brea), I thought I'd go ahead and slap up this age-updated interview with him, originally published on occasion of the limited theatrical release of the documentary Porn Star: The Life of Ron Jeremy, in November of 2001. To wit:

To really understand Ron Jeremy one must first have an inkling of his offscreen persona. Of his affable desperation to please. Of his unending quest for professional (and, by extension, personal) legitimacy. Of how, without completely copping to it, he really, quite literally wants everyone to like him.

Of course, these traits aren’t too difficult to glean — a half hour phone conversation should do the trick. “What’d you think of the movie?” presses Jeremy right out of the gate. “Be totally honest because I didn’t make the film, I’m just the subject.”



He’s speaking of Porn Star: The Life of Ron Jeremy, a documentary from Scott Gill detailing the life of the clown prince of pornography. Now 54 years old, Jeremy’s been in the adult movie business for more than half his life. His career, launched by a “Boy Next Door” photo in the October ’78 issue of Playgirl, includes more than 1,500 blue movies and a healthy smattering of regular film work (from TV work on Nash Bridges and bit parts in Killing Zoe, Detroit Rock City and The Boondock Saints to the cruel indignity of being edited out of Ronin). As porn’s reigning character actor, a performer who often infuses his cocksmen with a sense of playfulness and/or self-deprecating humor, Jeremy’s been in a position to see firsthand the sort of industry evolution on display in Paul Thomas Anderson’s sprawling Boogie Nights.

“I always did the comedy, I guess, more than most,” recalls Jeremy. “I came into the porn business with training, I came in with a degree in theater — a BA in theater, a BA in education and a masters in Special Ed. So I came into the business with training as an actor, and having taught theater and done some plays off Broadway. …I took it seriously as an acting medium back then, when you could. They had big scripts, big locations, [you were] travelling all over the world. You might do 10 days as an actor and one day you’d have a sex scene. So you felt kind of like an actor in a way. The scripts were important too; they even made you read before you got a job. Nowadays they just take a Polaroid of your body and you do or don’t work — which I can understand, because the market really changed when [pornography] went video and people brought it into their homes. Couples started watching it just to see exciting things. They’d fast forward through the dialogue: ‘Hey honey, look at this guy trying to act!’”

Through it all — improbably, for a man nicknamed “The Hedgehog” for his roly-poly physique and general hairiness — Jeremy has remained one of the most recognizable and enduringly popular faces (if not bodies) in porn. But, as the film amply demonstrates, Jeremy doesn’t let his celebrity go to his head. In fact, far from it — being the most famous person at any given party is usually a drag, Jeremy asserts. He gets a bigger kick out of celebrities who approach him. “I’m a big ham,” he admits. “I get a real kick when a celebrity will stop me and ask, ‘Are you Ron Jeremy?’” (His top five kicks, by the way, consists of Billy Joel, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Patti LuPone and Tony Curtis.)

Jeremy even has his own criteria, detailed in the documentary, for determining whether a party is worth investing your time in: first, and most important, is there someone there who you can brag to your friends that you met? Second, is there anyone present who can help your career in any way, shape or form? Third: good food? Fourth, is there quality entertainment? And of course, finally, are there any chicks you have a chance with?

That last lingering question might be most frequently a losing proposition for the majority of folks, but it probably keeps Jeremy at a lot of parties (well, OK, the food seems to as well). The fuzzy math of celebrity ensures Jeremy not only a loyal legion of college-age male fans and minions (indeed, Porn Star finds him being welcomed into a fraternity almost like returning royalty) but also, for some reason, plenty of “normal” women (read: not in the adult biz) who seem perfectly willing — and in some cases downright eager — to view and/or test his wares in person. “Occasionally a girl might come up to me and say, ‘Can I see it?’ And that might occasionally lead to some fun because I’ll say, ‘Well, show me yours and I’ll show you mine.’ And they’ll say, ‘But I’m not in the business.’ And then I’ll say, ‘Yeah, but I clocked out for today.’ And then we might go to some private area where they’ll flash, I’ll flash — that gets kind of fun because it might get a little playful.”

So what’s the upside of a documentary like Porn Star, a film that amuses, entertains and to a degree titillates, certainly, but also highlights in passing the cheapness, nervous aspiration and latent loneliness of its hirsute protagonist? “It mentions all these good things,” asserts the eternally optimistic Jeremy, citing at length his mother’s work as a code-breaker during World War II and his interesting family history. “They promised me they wouldn’t try to slant the direction to just porn, [that they would show] I’ve done decent speaking parts in major motion pictures. I mean, you have a prolific director like Adam Rifkin saying that I’m a very good actor and have to try extra hard to break the adult stigma. I like the public hearing that. …It shows, ‘All right, the guy’s trying to go mainstream, he’s giving it his best shot.’”